


Offside

by provocative_envy



Category: Original Work
Genre: Childhood Friends, Christmas, First Kiss, Humor, M/M, Mutual Pining, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27763150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/provocative_envy/pseuds/provocative_envy
Summary: Colby lifts his head, arching up onto the tips of his toes to follow their path through the crowd, and—He would recognize those shoulders, that strut, that jawline—he would recognize it anywhere.Literally.Literally anywhere.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 51
Kudos: 206
Collections: A Little Light Pining





	Offside

**Author's Note:**

> Happy holidays!
> 
> 1\. This is my contribution to [A Little Light Pining](https://provocative-envy.tumblr.com/post/635885689701023745/a-little-light-pining-ft-cocoartistwrites), a collaborative collection of short holiday romances that, not to brag, might just single-handedly save 2020. 
> 
> 2\. Special shoutout and endless gratitude to [Colubrina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Colubrina/pseuds/Colubrina), [cocoartist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cocoartist/pseuds/cocoartist), & [olivieblake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivieblake/pseuds/olivieblake) for being delightful and talented and making this so much fun - their stories are excellent, and I can't wait for everyone to read them!
> 
> 3\. The trope I chose to use for this story was "IT'S ABOUT THE YEARNING" and when I say I really leaned into it, _I really leaned into it_.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> xoxo

* * *

Colby’s sweater is kind of itchy.

If it isn’t the tag rubbing against the back of his neck, refusing to flip down, to stay down, it’s the crimped, fake wool cuffs scratching at his wrists, sagging around his hands. His mom sent it. He can’t just not wear it. But it’s _hot_ , arguably too warm for a house this small, for a party this packed—the heater’s on, too, inexplicably set to full-blast, and between that and the cinnamon schnapps and the intermixed strands of Christmas lights strung up and wrapped around what seems like every available surface, he’s about to start sweating.

He glances down at his chest, to where a very neatly stitched, rosy-cheeked Santa Claus is holding a hockey stick. The curve of the blade is backwards. Santa’s a lefty, apparently.

“Sick sweater, dude,” some guy hollers. He’s wearing a Sigma beanie. His teeth look like piano keys, blocky and uniform and highly, unnaturally polished. “Except I gotta say, I think Santa would totes be a goalie.”

Colby blinks, grip tightening around his flimsy plastic cup. Across the room, the grungy, splintered, visibly overblown stereo speakers are crackling with static as two girls in green velvet elf hats crank the volume up.

_“What more can I do?”_ Mariah Carey croons, helpless. _“Oh, baby, all I want for Christmas is you.”_

“Because he’s . . . so chubby?” Colby tries. “Is that—yeah?”

“Man is built like a _tank_ ,” Sigma Beanie Guy says sagely before spotting someone more familiar—more interesting—behind Colby’s left shoulder and immediately perking up, slinking off. “Good talk, chief!”

Colby grimaces and tugs at the sleeves of his sweater, wishing he could just—take it off. Leave. That would be rude, though. End-of-semester parties at Pine House were a time-honored tradition, supposedly. Allegedly. He should be enjoying himself, finishing his drink, flirting with one of those girls in the shiny wrapping paper headbands, not hiding, resigned to his fate, beneath an ancient bough of balsam-scented Wal-Mart holly that’s been stapled to the living room wall, brushing ruby-red glitter out of his hair and daydreaming about his flight home.

_Home,_ where the eggnog didn’t come from a carton in the grocery store and the logs burning in the fireplace didn’t smell like the “11 Herbs & Spices” at a KFC.

Someone else jostles Colby’s elbow, briskly brushing past him on their way to the kitchen, and he wouldn’t have even _noticed_ , probably, wouldn’t have even thought to look twice, if it weren’t for the black leather jacket they have on—soft and heavy and sun-bleached in a few spots, clearly well-worn, well-used, not just for show.

It’s out of place.

Like, _really_ out of place.

Colby lifts his head, arching up onto the tips of his toes to follow their path through the crowd, and—

He would recognize those shoulders, that strut, that jawline—he would recognize it anywhere.

Literally.

Literally anywhere.

There are whole photo albums in his parents’ basement papered with that jawline. Well, no. Not _that_ jawline. Not specifically. Not exactly. Not that sharp or that chiseled or that finely, leanly molded. Spencer Beck didn’t have that jawline—didn’t have the face attached to that jawline—three years ago. If he had, Colby would’ve probably died. Would’ve probably outed himself much, much earlier. Because he’d spent most of his childhood and a solid two-thirds of his adolescence staring at it. At that jawline, at the face attached to that jawline, and it’s a gut-punch, an unexpected heartache, almost like being confronted by his very own Ghost of Christmas Past, even if he’s never so much as _thought_ the words “bah, humbug” before tonight.

Colby lifts his arm, all on his own, with absolutely _zero_ input from his brain, and hears himself bleat, like a sheep, like the bright-eyed, baby-faced, barely pubescent _child_ Spencer probably remembers him as:

“Spencer?”

Spencer stops walking, posture stiffening like maybe he recognizes Colby’s voice. Like maybe there are parts of Colby that _he’s_ been haunted by, too. Infatuated with. Curious about the ageing process of. And then he turns around, and his actual face—that isn’t different _enough_. His eyes are darker, somehow, lashes fuller, thicker, his cheekbones more prominent. His hair isn’t as long as it used to be, is swept back and tucked behind his ears rather than tied up, but the color of it—glossy, deep, reddish brown, like expensive wood—is the same. His mouth is soft. His chin is square. His expression, as he gives Colby a quick, borderline impersonal once-over, like there aren’t four or five people standing between them, like time is still just _passing_ , keeping on, clocks ticking and light blurring, is impossible to read. 

It stings, just a little, that Spencer’s so obviously a stranger now.

“Colby Hutton,” Spencer says, a muscle in his cheek twitching. Tensing. Like he’s gritting his teeth. “I, uh. Wow. Hey. Thought you’d for sure be home already.”

Colby frowns. “Wait, you—” He pushes himself off the wall, ducking his chin to maneuver through the slightly thinned-out crowd, flashing a polite, apologetic smile as he clutches his cup, the hair on his arms chafing against the uncomfortable grain of his sweater. “You knew I was here? At—not at this party, obviously, how would you know that, that would be, um, that would be insane, but . . .”

He trails off, coming to a halt in front of Spencer. Maybe a little too close. Maybe a little too sudden. Spencer doesn’t step back, which is nice of him, but also incredibly _not_ nice of him because he smells like soap and spearmint and cedar and mulling spices and it’s probably just his aftershave or his deodorant or something, humans don’t just smell like those things, not naturally, but it’s still—Colby wants to sway towards it, is all. Towards Spencer. Wants to take another breath, just to savor it the second time around.

“You knew I went to Arbor, I mean,” Colby clarifies. “Go to Arbor. Um. Am in . . . am in attendance . . . at . . . Arbor.”

Spencer’s mouth relaxes into a smile that almost looks real. “You’re on the hockey team, lambchop, of course I knew you _went_ here.” He tosses a glance back over his shoulder, through the kitchen door. “Congrats on that, by the way. You were definitely not that good when I left.”

Colby snorts. “I was better than you.”

“So was everyone, that’s why I quit.”

There’s a faintly jagged, remarkably painful beat of silence.

“If you knew I was here, why didn’t you—" Colby cuts himself off. It’s not fair to ask that. It’s not his business. It would’ve been _nice,_ yeah, for Spencer to track him down on campus, or wait for him at the rink after a game, or send an email, a text, a smoke signal or a carrier pigeon or _anything_ , but—but maybe it just never occurred to him to. Maybe he just never thought about Colby all that often. Maybe he just never missed Colby like Colby missed him.

Colby doesn’t really want to know if that’s true or not.

So, he swallows, and he hesitates, and he forces himself to keep smiling, even though it feels kind of cowardly. Kind of dishonest. Over by the speakers, Mariah Carey’s been replaced by Nat King Cole. A giant inflatable gingerbread man is being bounced around like a beachball next to the beer pong table. Spencer is here. Spencer is _here_.

“Right, well, it’s good to see you,” Colby settles on, suddenly worried about how earnest he may or may not sound, how much information Spencer may or may not be able to glean from his tone, from his voice, from his demeanor, from how Colby’s still kind of _leaning_ towards him, like that tower in Italy, like a partially frozen prairie flower waking up at the tail-end of winter, craning and wilting, hunting for the sun. “It’s been—um, it’s been a while.”

“Yeah,” Spencer says. “Yeah, it has. It’s good to see you, too, kid.”

“Kid,” Colby teases. “Like you’re such an old man.”

“Hey,” Spencer says, making a big show of patting the top of Colby’s head, “which one of us actually had a growth spurt, huh?”

A curling flush of heat creeps up the back of Colby’s neck. “I’m not that short.”

“No, no, of course you’re not,” Spencer says with a sly, deliberately soothing grin. “You’re _at least_ a quarter-inch taller than you were at fifteen.”

Colby huffs out a laugh, fighting the urge to fidget, to fiddle with the rim of his cup and slosh his drink around—Spencer is watching him, a fleeting glint of _something_ passing through his eyes. Regret? Fondness? Boredom? Colby has so many questions and nowhere to stow them, nowhere to lock them up and leave them to rot. What was California like? How did he end up at Arbor? Did he really quit hockey? Was he a Ducks fan now? How were his parents? Divorced yet? Still arguing about what color to paint the downstairs bathroom?

Colby’s amusement gradually tapers off, and Spencer glances back over to the kitchen again. He’s cracking his knuckles like he, too, desperately needs something to do with his hands. There’s an impatience, there. A frustration. Colby’s throat feels tight, quietly strangled, like this opportunity—this unexpected second chance—is slipping right through his fingers. Like sand in an hourglass. Like minutes and seconds and shots on goal vanishing off the clock during OT.

It’s just so _clear_ , what’s about to happen.

Spencer will offer him another smile, maybe clap an awkward hand on his shoulder, and mumble a few empty, insincere platitudes about keeping in touch this time. Grabbing coffee. Hanging out. Colby will then nod, grin and bear it, act like this is all fine and normal and like he’s not aggressively, wistfully _nostalgic_ for three years and a lifetime ago, for a dozen other, better holiday breaks—snickering as they piped swear words onto sugar cookie ornaments, green and gold sanding sugar embedded in their fingernails, until his mom caught on and confiscated their icing bags; huge, raucous, stomach-scouring peals of laughter echoing around the plywood boards of the backyard rink his dad was always so proud of, their skate blades cutting through murky blue ice as they kicked a puck back and forth, past the spray-painted faceoff dots that reminded them of a crime scene, a construction site—there was still a stocking, somewhere, maybe buried in the garage, with Spencer’s name embroidered across the top.

Spencer had been family, even if Colby had eventually wanted him to be more than that, which is—not the point. Not the issue. Not the problem. Colby is not aggressively, wistfully nostalgic for _that_.

“Hey,” Colby says, licking his lips, “what if we—”

_“Mistletoe!”_ Sigma Beanie Guy yells, swooping out from the crowd to point directly at—Colby flicks his eyes up, to where a telltale sprig of green-and-red has been Scotch-taped to the doorframe—the space between Spencer and Colby. “ _Kiss, kiss, kiss!”_

It’s like all the blood has been drained from Colby’s face, like he’s been stealth-eaten by a vampire, even as a mortified, scorching-hot blush slithers up and out of his sweater, staining his cheeks, which—should be medically improbable. Impossible. It’s downright concerning, frankly.

_“Kiss, kiss—_ oh, hey, no homo, though,” Sigma Beanie Guy says, way, way, _way_ too loud. Spencer hasn’t moved. Appears to be frozen in place. “Unless . . . I mean, _yes_ homo? Maybe? If you want? I don’t really—like, who _cares_ , just— _kiss, kiss, kiss!”_

Finally— _finally_ —Spencer grunts, seemingly making up his mind about how to proceed, and wordlessly spins on his heel, stomping through the kitchen and directly out the back door. Colby watches him go, a terrible, gnawing dread building in his chest, swelling, ebbing; he doesn’t wait to see or hear how anybody reacts, just shoves his cup into Sigma Beanie Guy’s hands and chases after Spencer, overwhelmed by that numbing, throat-clenching sensation from earlier. Like he’s about to miss a penalty shot. Like he’s about to get left behind.

It’s chilly outside, the yard mostly overgrown, scraggly blades of grass poking through a thick layer of dense, powdery snow. The crunch of his boots is calming, familiar, a smoothly steady backdrop for the plummeting temperature, the shift in the atmosphere, the lingering aftershocks of all that stifling heat and artificial cheer.

Spencer’s in the middle of the yard, his arms crossed, his head tilted back as he gazes up at the film of clouds floating across the sky.

“Well, that was weird, huh,” Colby says, chuckling, the sound of it sparse and stilted and so, so strained.

“Yeah,” Spencer sighs, breath whistling out through his teeth, forming a damply wispy cloud that takes several seconds to dissipate. “Yeah. Hella weird.”

“ _Hella,_ ” Colby repeats, eyebrows flying up. “That’s—that isn’t a real word, is it?’

“Define _real.”_

“Uh, in the dictionary?”

“Officially?”

“Is there . . . another way to be in the dictionary?”

Spencer’s features thaw, just a little. “You should go inside, lambchop,” he says, jerking his chin at Colby’s upper body. “It’s cold.”

Startled, Colby peers down at his sweater again. He’d forgotten about it. About how itchy it is. About how he’s not wearing a coat, about how his coat is actually still inside, huddled beneath a stack of other, more unassuming coats in one of the downstairs bedrooms. It isn’t like he’d _planned_ to run out here. To be out here. He shakes his head, thinking back to all those other winters, all those other years—there’s an almost unimaginable gulf between standing here with Spencer, right now, in the starry, gently preserved semidarkness, and going back to a party he doesn’t want to be at, to a drink he’s never going to finish.

Steeling his spine, Colby bends down to scoop up a healthy handful of snow, packing it into a neat ball. His movements are practiced, muscle memory filling in the gaps that his burning, gloveless palms are fumbling over; he’s done this a thousand times, easy, tested the weight, plotted his throw, prepared for battle.

“Yeah, but it’s not _Minnesota_ cold, is it?” he asks, straightening back up, and it’s one last shot at normalcy, one last shot at retying all those loose ends, those long-lost split-end threads—

He lobs the ball at Spencer’s face, where it connects with a dull, muted thump, sending snow cascading down the dark gray of his t-shirt, melting into the leather of his jacket, drifting up to flake off those lushly fluttering, truly absurd eyelashes.

Spencer smirks, suddenly.

And Colby’s pulse begins to race.

* * *

Brushing snow off of each other after a graceless, impromptu snowball fight comes as instinctually, as naturally, as breathing.

Spencer yanks a pair of knitted black gloves out of his jacket pocket, tugs them on and claps his hands together and then slings a heavy, well-muscled arm around Colby’s neck, squinting down at him with an intensity that doesn’t particularly _mesh_ with the wry, playful grin flickering around the corners of his mouth.

“Seriously, where’s your coat?” Spencer asks, not moving away. Not dropping his arm. He’s warm. Big. Colby’s put on weight since he was fifteen, of course—he had to, to make up for that nonexistent growth spurt Spencer mentioned—but Spencer’s always been taller, broader, stronger, more athletic. It’s funny, actually, that of the two of them, Colby’s the one who stuck with hockey. Who didn’t give it up. Who got the varsity jacket and the letter on his jersey and the scholarship to a school that’s way too many miles away from where he wants to be. “You look like a popsicle.”

“What kind?”

Spencer’s grin turns wicked. “Otter Pop.”

Colby flushes, lips numb and buzzing from the cold. His nose is probably bright pink. “Um,” he says, “my coat’s in—the coat room. With everybody else’s.”

“Well, go grab it,” Spencer says, squeezing Colby’s shoulder and nodding towards the side yard, where the multicolored glow of streetlights and Christmas lights and headlights is peeking through the wide-open gate. “I’m hungry, come on.”

Colby pauses, eyes wide, and stares at Spencer for a second too long. His heart is skipping beats, lodged someplace in his chest that it really isn’t supposed to be. Spencer’s arm is still around his neck, his hand drawing up to scrub leftover snow out of Colby’s hair. It’s just—distracting. That’s all.

“Yeah, um, okay,” Colby says, clearing his throat and taking an aborted half-step backwards without bothering to actually turn around. He trips over his own foot, somehow getting his legs tangled with Spencer’s, and Spencer’s answering laughter is low and deep and gentle, private, like it’s just for them and no one else, a comforting, rumbling exhale against the hypersensitive shell of Colby’s ear.

It sounds different than it used to.

That laughter.

More poignant, more jarring, more _adult,_ and Colby _shivers_ in response to it—because how can he not, how can he stop himself, how can he go back to not having this—which is embarrassing, yeah, but maybe Spencer will just think it’s from the crisp, winter-dry breeze.

“Okay, um, I’m just gonna—” Colby ducks out from under Spencer’s arm and jerks his thumb towards the house. “Go grab that, then.”

“Meet you out front!” Spencer calls out, already walking towards the side yard, whistling the tune to “Jingle Bells” and shadow-boxing the big plastic snowman that’s been left next to the trashcans. “Don’t be late, lambchop!”

Colby allows himself just one more moment of shameless, uninterrupted staring before he hurries back into Pine House, wrinkling his nose at the sticky heat and the thumping bass and the shattered bottle of peppermint-flavored vodka pooling across the kitchen floor. He locates his coat and slips it on as he wades through another crush of people, gloves clutched between his teeth—his fingers are stiff and frozen from all the snow, clumsy around the buttons on his coat, and he’s frowning at them, the beribboned, attic-dusty old wreath nailed to the front door rustling as it swings shut behind him, when he finally glances up again.

Spencer’s standing at the end of the mossy red-brick walkway, right beside the mailbox, his hands tucked into his jacket pockets, watching him. Watching Colby. His gaze is piercing, pensive—hungry, almost, like he hasn’t done this exact thing a thousand times before, hasn’t waited outside in the cold while Colby finished getting ready for practice or while Colby finished eating breakfast or while Colby finished stuffing his mostly incomplete math homework in his backpack—and Colby does up the last button his coat, spits out his gloves, jumps down the porch steps, and then _waves_ , bright and eager, like a puppy, like the giant, undeniable nerd he was always destined to be before Spencer intervened.

“Where are we going?” Colby asks.

Spencer gives him another once-over—slower, more thorough—and sweeps an arm out, gesturing towards the far end of the block with a flourish. His expression is back to being a little closed off, a little distant, like he’s experiencing some highly specific, extremely controversial emotion he’d prefer to keep hidden, to keep to himself, to keep far, far away from Colby.

“Holiday market,” Spencer says. “It’s kind of famous, actually, a bunch of Hallmark movies filmed there last year, that girl from _High School Musical_ got lost in the beer garden and cried. You been yet?”

“Uh, no,” Colby sputters. Spencer is walking next to him—so much closer than strictly, technically necessary—and their arms and wrists and elbows and _hips_ are touching. Grazing. Bumping. It’s a lot. “The team—we had to sign a bunch of pucks for a charity auction, but I had a final that night, so I couldn’t go.”

Spencer sniffs, nostrils flaring. “It’s, uh—it’s cute.”

_“Cute?”_

“Quaint,” Spencer corrects mildly. “Charming. Pleasantly old-fashioned.”

“And you . . . like that?” Colby hedges.

Spencer chuckles, tongue curling out to swipe at his bottom lip. “It reminds me of home. Of your parents’ house. Around Christmas, I mean.”

Colby skims the toe of his boot along the sidewalk. “Why?”

“There’s just a lot of—” Spencer makes a vague circular motion with his hand. “Everyone’s super happy, and there are, like, glassblowers and Norwegian carolers and a billion types of hot chocolate and there’s this guy with a pet reindeer who plays the lute and gives out these _really_ awesome spice cookies—”

“Mm, yeah,” Colby says dryly. “Norwegian carolers and a guy with a pet reindeer. That for sure sounds like my parents’ house. Nailed it.”

Spencer looks at him askance, visibly biting back a smile. “It’s the _vibes_ , lambchop.”

Colby nudges Spencer’s ribs. They’re rapidly approaching the blocked-off cobblestone square where the holiday market’s taking place; a raucous, twinkling splash of light and noise is casting a homey silver halo around the next street corner, like some kind of festive, candy-striped neon sign confirming they’re headed in the right direction. 

“You spend a lot of time soaking up the _vibes_ at the holiday market, then?” Colby asks.

Spencer shrugs, smile fading. “Christmas at the beach is nice, I guess, but it doesn’t feel like _Christmas_.”

“Um, I dunno,” Colby says thickly, surprised by the size of the lump in his throat. “Tons of people go south for the winter, right? Like, on vacation? Like geese?”

“ _Geese_.”

“What? That’s—that’s their whole thing! Flying south!”

“I’m just _saying_ ,” Spencer drawls, “that it should not be sixty-five and sunny on Christmas morning. It’s unnatural. If you aren’t risking frostbite when you take your new skates out for a spin, like, what’s the point, am I right?”

Colby ducks his chin so that he’s smiling—small, private, flustered—into the collar of his coat. “That was _once_.”

“Twice.”

“And it wasn’t _frostbite_ , I just caught a cold.”

“You caught _pneumonia._ ”

“Which also is not frostbite.”

“It’s basically the frostbite of, like, the lungs.”

“That isn’t how pneumonia works!”

“How are you parents doing, anyway?” Spencer asks blithely, and it’s such a _Spencer_ staple, refusing to concede, refusing to deal with the mess of being wrong, no matter how ridiculous the argument—it makes Colby’s stomach twist. Ache. “I wasn’t kidding, you know, I would’ve thought you’d be home by now. Freshman finals are all over, aren’t they?”

Colby doesn’t answer immediately, just inhales, exhales, the air bracingly cold against his skin as they round the corner. He leans into Spencer, savoring the warmth. The holiday market is only about a hundred yards away—crowded, loud, but not like the party at Pine was. It’s set up like a picturesque Bavarian village, rustic wooden booths with red or green awnings, strands of tinsel and holly wrapped around posts and columns and railings. There are foil-potted poinsettias and snow-dusted pine trees, gingerbread houses and nutcracker soldiers; Spencer is taking the scene in with an odd look on his face, like he’s trying to commit it to memory, sear it into his brain.

“Oh, my parents are fine,” Colby says, belatedly. The fabric of his sweater’s still prickling at him, pulling and scratching. “Maybe some empty nest syndrome? My mom’s been scrapbooking, she went nuts with it a little bit ago, stalked a bunch of our—my old peewee coaches for memorabilia.”

Spencer tilts his head back, shoulders shaking as he huffs out another laugh. “Of course she did.”

Colby scrubs the heel of his palm against his nose, sniffing. “What about yours?”

“My parents?”

“Yeah. How, uh, how are they? How’ve they been?”

Spencer kicks at the snow, gaze pinned to the—quaint, charming, pleasantly old-fashioned—signpost planted at the edge of the market. The arrow planks are crooked, hand-carved with words like NATIVITY and BEER and SANTA.

“My dad got remarried over the summer,” Spencer says carefully, with almost no inflection. “I don’t see him as much anymore. My mom, uh—she’s good. Happy. She, like, joined a CrossFit, introduced the concept of ‘hot dish’ to her book club, started getting her groove back. It’s . . . whatever.”

Colby beams. “That’s great.”

“It’s great that my dad sucks and my mom’s gone all _Eat, Pray, Love_ on me?”

“No,” Colby says, with admirable patience. Maybe a _smidge_ of uncomfortably self-aware hypocrisy. “It’s great that your mom’s turning her attention to stuff she can control and not wallowing in the past.”

Spencer glances at him, a little bothered, a lot bemused. “When did you get so wise, lambchop?”

Colby blushes. “I’m not fifteen anymore.”

“Yeah, no, I know,” Spencer says, whistling lowly. “Believe me. I know.”

“I _am_ sorry, though,” Colby goes on, ignoring that, that comment, because if he thinks about it too hard—if he thinks about it at _all_ , honestly—he won’t be able to speak again, at least not coherently. He would just—combust. Explode. Melt into a puddle of raging hormones and flustered denial, right in the middle of the street. “That your dad’s having a midlife crisis.”

Spencer cracks a grin that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Hey, nothing gold can stay, isn’t that the expression?”

Before Colby can reply, Spencer’s hooking an arm around Colby’s neck and steering him towards a nearby booth.

“What’d I tell you about the hot chocolate, huh?” Spencer asks. “A billion types.”

Colby graciously inspects the chalkboard menu, heart swooping around his chest like a very small, overexcited songbird, flitting and thrumming and singing; he doesn’t remember Spencer being this _tactile_ , before, this touchy-feely, this casually affectionate. It’s not weird. It’s not awkward. It’s exhilarating.

“There are . . . three types,” Colby says. “Not a billion.”

“Semantics.”

“Uh. Math?”

“No whipped cream, right?”

“What?”

“But yes to the cinnamon?”

“How do you—?”

“And extra marshmallows? As many as they can fit in the cup?”

“Yeah, but—”

“You like the peppermint sticks, too, don’t you?”

Colby doesn’t answer. Not verbally, at least. He isn’t sure that he can; isn’t sure that his tongue will ever properly unstick from the roof of his mouth. It’s normal, isn’t it? For Spencer to remember this stuff? It doesn’t—it doesn’t _mean_ anything. Anything special. Anything more. Spencer orders his steaks medium-well and his burgers medium-rare. He puts apple butter on his pancakes. His own hot chocolate, when he takes it from the woman in the German fairytale pinafore, is going to be piled high with whipped cream and butterscotch chips.

Colby doesn’t need a time machine or a cheat sheet to tell him that.

“So,” Spencer says, once they’re walking again, warming their hands around disposable paper cups of hot chocolate; there’s a glassblower with a stall full of ornaments nearby, delicate, gold and silver-dusted orbs and stars and dreidels, and a North Pole photo-op at the entrance to what looks like a petting zoo. “How drunk do you think Santa is right now?”

Colby chokes on a sip of hot chocolate. “ _What?”_

Spencer nods towards the photo-op. It’s a grinning man in a Santa suit, fake white beard only half-attached, sitting on an elaborate, velvet-upholstered armchair next to an unlit wood-burning stove and a small stack of cheerfully wrapped gift boxes. There’s a steaming mug of—something—in his lap. His cheeks are very, very red.

“His shift ends soon,” Spencer says. “That eggnog is eighty-percent brandy.”

Colby manages a bark of strangled, horrified laughter. “Santa isn’t drunk!”

“Santa is _for sure_ drunk.”

“He wouldn’t—he’s there for kids!”

“It’s eleven o’clock, lambchop, you’re the only kid here.”

They finish their hot chocolates and keep walking—still a little too close; still a little too slow; still a little too _comfortable_ with their arms brushing, elbows and wrists grazing, their voices pitched low and quiet, and the space between them, the air between them, positively _brimming_ with something, ripe with it, just like that one-two punch of awe and adrenaline and thunderstruck, bone-deep certainty that strikes in the split-second preceding the cherry-red wail of the goal light going off—and there’s a stall selling gingerbread crepes and a life-sized wooden advent calendar with most of the doors already propped open and the spice cookie guy with the pet reindeer and between all of that, between the snow on the ground and the whistling chill of the wind, the jingle-bells and the holly berries and the honeyed scents of cedar and sugar and mulling spices—well, Colby gets it. Why Spencer said it reminded him of home.

Except—no.

No, Colby _doesn’t_ get it, does he?

“I get why, um, like, keeping in touch . . .” Colby swallows, throat bobbing, bottom lip clamped between his teeth. “I get why that was hard, and I get why you didn’t do it, but what I _don’t_ get—” He breaks off. Spencer’s eyes are dark, focused, mesmerizing. “You knew I was here. All semester. Three and a half months. You could’ve—and you _didn’t_ —and I just—I want to—you didn’t even _try_.”

Try—what?

It’s a loaded word.

A uniquely, pointedly, bravely cryptic accusation.

It could mean as much or as little as Spencer wants it to, as much or as little as Spencer cares for it to, and Colby doesn’t actually expect an answer. He isn’t naïve enough to hope for one. Not a real one, at least. Spencer has always hated problems he didn’t understand how to solve, that he couldn’t immediately pry apart and inspect the insides of. Colby has spent three months wanting to go back to his parents’ house, but he’s also spent three _years_ wanting to go home. Spencer used to be home. Maybe it’s not fair to pin that on him. To wish it never changed.

“I missed you,” Spencer admits.

“Yeah, I missed you, too,” Colby says, frustrated. “What does that—”

“No, I _missed_ you,” Spencer interrupts, stepping closer, “and I couldn’t figure out how to stop.”

Colby senses the kiss—the possibility of it, the reality of it, the significance of it—before it even happens. And then it _does_ happen, and it’s—

It’s a gentle press of their lips catching at just the right angle, at just the right moment, soft and hushed and magical, like a Christmas Eve snowfall. There’s a sweetness to it, a warmth leftover from the hot chocolate, yeah, but also from how Spencer’s hands are cradling Colby’s jaw, from how Colby’s fists are bunched up around the front of Spencer’s shirt, from how their breathing isn’t quite in sync, an inhale shuddering into an exhale, shared and swapped, another way to finally meet in the middle.

* * *

Colby’s sweater itches a lot less when he’s too wrapped up in Spencer to notice it.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> [come join me in hell and/or to discuss the merits of the KFC firelog](http://www.provocative-envy.tumblr.com)


End file.
